The Wedding Party (The Wedding Date, #3)(43)

This thing with Maddie was so weird. He still wasn’t sure if he’d been right to come over last night. She was still so hot and cold with him, but he couldn’t deny it to himself any longer that he had it bad for Maddie. He knew it would pass; this was just one of those early relationship–type crushes that would never progress to something bigger, but it had only made it worse that she’d been so great the night before.

He brushed the soft hairs that had escaped from her loose bun back and kissed her gently on her temple.

“Good morning,” she mumbled, her face still pressed against his chest.

He kissed her again.

“Good morning. Did I fall asleep on you last night?”

She tilted her head back to look up at him and smiled.

“You fell asleep on me twice last night, as a matter of fact. First on the couch, then here in the bed. But you were pretty exhausted last night.”

He shook his head at himself.

“God, what an asshole I am. First I barge into your house, take advantage of your hospitality, and then I fall asleep in the middle of kissing you. I’m surprised you put up with me.”

Maddie nodded. Of course she did.

“I’m surprised I put up with you, too. You also drank a bunch of my wine before conking out on my best furniture. And it was really good wine.”

He pushed her onto her back.

“It was really good wine, thank you for that. Apparently, I have a lot to make up for this morning.” He knelt between her legs and smiled down at her.

Once her trembling subsided and she could breathe again, he lifted his mouth and moved back up and kissed her.

“Thanks for taking care of me last night,” he said. “Not just giving me a place to crash, but . . . the rest, too.”

She kissed him back.

“Thanks for taking care of me this morning,” she said.

He grinned and rolled out of the bed.

“It was the least I could do. Now I’m going to see what kind of ancient mechanism you have to make coffee, and I’m going to make the best coffee you’ve ever had with it. You just wait.”

He wandered naked into her kitchen. First, to see if she even had coffee. She must, right? He spied a familiar brown Peet’s Coffee bag and sighed with relief. He looked on the counter: okay, she had an enormous Mr. Coffee coffee maker. Not the best option, but he’d use that if there was nothing else. He opened a few cabinets to see what else she had.

“I thought you were making coffee. How are you making all this noise in here?” Maddie walked in wearing a silky patterned robe, with, he was pretty sure, nothing underneath. He very much wanted to take that robe off her and . . . No, he needed to stay focused. He could take that robe off her after the coffee.

“Don’t you have an electric kettle?” he asked her.

He bent down to double-check her cabinets.

“No, what would I do with one of those?” she asked. “What do you even want with one of those? I have a coffee maker right there.”

He stood up and turned back to Maddie. She quickly looked away. She’d been looking at his ass again. He hid his grin.

“Okay, fine. I’ll make coffee your way. But . . . do you have measuring spoons? Or a measuring cup?”

Maddie rolled her eyes.

“I just use a normal spoon and the measuring lines on the side of the coffee maker. You’re so weird.”

He smiled at her.

“Humor me?”

She shook her head at him and shrugged, but he was pretty sure he saw a hint of a smile on her face.

“Fine, do what you want, as long as I get coffee at the end of this.”

She dug a set of measuring spoons out of a drawer and took down the measuring cup from the cabinet.

He kissed her cheek and measured four tablespoons of coffee and thirty-two ounces of water into the coffee maker.

“See? I’m adaptable,” he said before shutting the lid.

She was just about to retort something when her doorbell rang.

“Who is ringing my doorbell at nine a.m. on Saturday morning?” She walked out of the kitchen and through the living room toward the front door.

“It’s me! I hear you in there! Open up!” Alexa’s voice came through the front door.

What the hell was Alexa doing here? Just as Theo was about to wave at Maddie to pretend she wasn’t there and that Alexa didn’t hear anything, or failing that, to give him time to hide in the bedroom, Maddie opened the door.

Maddie opened the door.

To Alexa.

With him buck naked.

In her kitchen.

He had just enough time to leap into the corner of the kitchen that wasn’t visible from her living room. And there he stood, staring at Maddie’s spice rack and the many boxes of Girl Scout Cookies in the far corner of her kitchen. Naked.

“Lex? Is everything okay?” Maddie said.

Couldn’t she have asked that with the door still closed?

“I’m okay, I think, but I might have lost my mind, I’m not sure.” “Alexa sounded like she was at least on her fourth cup of coffee. I called and you didn’t answer, and I figured you were asleep and I know I woke you up and I’m sorry but I had to talk about this right now! The most amazing and also terrifying thing just happened!”

He heard the door open all the way and Alexa walk in. Great, now he was really trapped.